(Taylor Media Services) A recently released six-year study concludes that the social “isolation and limitations” of poor, inner city neighborhoods can have a more negative impact on a child’s verbal and cognitive (thinking) skills than growing up in a low-income family. In a study released last month, researchers found that children in Chicago who spent most of their lives in segregated, low-income neighborhoods scored lower on verbal tests even when their families were middle income.
In fact, the study revealed that living in a so-called “disadvantaged” neighborhood for at least two years lowered a child’s verbal test scores by four IQ points – or roughly the equivalent of one year of education. The study looked at 2,000 lower-income and middle-income students aged 6 to 12 over a six year period. The study involved researchers from three universities and was published in a December issue of the academic journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
University of Chicago professor Stephen Raudenbush, one of the authors of the study, said that regardless of the family’s efforts, growing up in or moving into “a high risk community makes it [verbal and cognitive skills] worse.” He added, “Children who stay in these communities are at a distinct disadvantage the rest of their lives.”
[Contact Robert N. Taylor Med Services at RobertTaylor (AT) blacknewsjournal.net ]
It seems that Sen. Clinton’s undercover attacks against Sen. Obama are starting to work against her. From the beginning of her campaign for President I have been offended by what I perceive as arrogance on the part of Sen. Clinton. From her audacity to speak among Presidents at the late Coretta Scott King’s funeral, to the fake accent she seemed to develop when speaking at a Black church. When will Sen. Clinton and her husband realize that Black folks were amusing them, no one really thinks Bill is Black. I find it quit offensive that the Clintons don’t respect the fact that being black is a little more than our walk and talk, it’s also about the struggle – past and present – of a people.
Bottom line, I would bet my last dollar that neither Clinton was a victim of Driving While Black. I would put that same dollar on betting Obama has been a victim of DWB more than once. I bet he’s Black enough for that. Let that be a test of his Blackness.
Racial Undercurrent Is Seen in Clinton Campaign By Chris Cillizza And Shailagh Murray
It has unfolded mostly under the radar. But an important development in the 2008 Democratic battle may be the building backlash among African Americans over comments from associates of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton that could be construed as jabs at Sen. Barack Obama's race.
These officials, including Clinton aides and prominent surrogates, have raised questions or dropped references about Obama's position on sentencing guidelines for crack vs. powder cocaine offenses; on his handgun control record; and on his admitted use of drugs as a youth. The context was always Obama's "electability." But the Illinois senator's campaign advisers said some African American leaders detect a pattern, and they believe it could erode Clinton's strong base of black support. Read the Washington Post article here
Condoleezza Rice, one of most powerful and controversial women in the world, has until now remained a mystery behind an elegant, cool veneer. In this stunning new biography, New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller peels back the layers and presents a revelatory portrait of the first black female secretary of state and President George W. Bush’s national security adviser on September 11, 2001. The book relates in more intimate detail than ever before the personal voyage of a young black woman out of the segregated American South and also tells the sweeping story of a tumultuous half-century in the nation’s history.
In Condoleezza Rice: An American Life, we see Rice’s Alabama childhood under Bull Connor’s reign of terror in “Bombingham,’’ the name given to Birmingham when it was the central battleground of the civil rights movement; her education in foreign policy under Josef Korbel, a charismatic Czech intellectual who also happened to be the father of Madeleine Albright, the only other female secretary of state in U.S. history; and Rice’s confrontations with minorities and women while she was provost at Stanford University in the 1990s.
Examining the current administration, Bumiller explores in depth Rice’s extraordinarily close relationship with George W. Bush, her battles with Vice President Dick Cheney, and her indirect but crucial role in the ousting of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Bumiller shows us Rice missing clues to the September 11 attacks, waging war against Saddam Hussein, and counting election returns with Karl Rove in 2004. In addition, we watch Rice’s recent attempts to salvage the ruins of the Iraq policy she helped create and to avoid war with Iran.
Drawing on extensive interviews with Rice and more than 150 others, including colleagues, family members, government officials, and critics, this book offers dramatic new information about the events and personalities of the Bush administration. With great insight, Bumiller explores Rice’s effectiveness as national security adviser and secretary of state, her attempts to revive classic American diplomacy, her longtime political ambitions, and her future on the world stage.
Richard Prince reports in Richard Prince's Journal-isms that Susan L. Taylor, editorial director of Essence magazine is leaving the publication to focus on her Essence Cares mentoring movement.
Icon for Black Women Focusing on Mentoring Effort by Richard Prince
Susan L. Taylor, the driving force behind Essence magazine since she became its editor in chief in 1981, is leaving the magazine to build her Essence Cares mentoring movement, "a call to action for every able Black adult to take under wing a vulnerable young person."
Those who attempt to contact Taylor by e-mail are told:
"I am taking a break in South Africa and will have little access to email. When I come back to the States in mid-January, I will be leaving Essence to do what at this juncture in my life has become a larger work for me —building the National Cares Mentoring Movement, which I founded as Essence Cares and today is my deepest passion. Read the story here
Here I am talking grandmother talk with Susan.
It seems that some healthcare insurance doesn't cover sick people. It only covers you when you're healthy or just a little sick. The tragic story of Nataline Sarkisyan is a prime example of the serious problems with the current healthcare system. According to the Los Angeles Times, Cigna HealthCare refused to approve and pay for a liver transplant for the 17-year-old leukemia patient "calling the procedure experimental because it was not supported by enough medical literature as safe or effective in such cases. "
Nataline died shortly after Cigna reversed its refusal.
This sounds a lot like the Denzel Washington movie John Q. How can the law allow insurance companies to collect premiums for years and then refuse to cover a dying child?
The healthcare system in America needs a complete overhaul.
Tough calls in transplant case
A Northridge teen dies shortly after her insurer reverses its refusal to pay for a treatment it called experimental. By Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
The case of a Northridge teenager taken off life support just as her insurance company reversed itself and agreed to pay for a liver transplant is highlighting tensions among physicians, patients and insurers over the definition of experimental procedures.
Nataline Sarkisyan's family blames their insurance company, Cigna HealthCare, for the teenager's death Thursday. A leukemia patient, 17-year-old Nataline had been in intensive care at UCLA Medical Center for about three weeks after suffering complications following a successful bone marrow transplant Nov. 21, relatives said. She was covered under the policy of her mother, a real estate agent.
Doctors treating Nataline told the family and Cigna in a letter that patients in similar situations have a 65% chance of living six months if they receive a liver transplant. Doctors had qualified Nataline for a transplant Dec. 6 and a liver became available four days later, the family said. But the transplant was not performed because Cigna had refused to approve and pay for the procedure, they said. Read the story here
MIAMI, Dec. 20.— The New Orleans Police used electric tasers and tear gas to repress protesters who were trying to enter a City Council meeting where a plan was approved to demolish thousands of low-income homes in that city affected by Hurricane Katrina.
A number of demonstrators, who charged that the demolition would be racist because those most affected are African Americans, were arrested after their protest outside the iron gates of City Hall in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Footage broadcast by the CNN network depicted a police officer spraying gas, amidst screams, on people nearest to the gates. Read the full story here
This is one of the positive sides of hip-hop culture. Rapper Jay-Z, aka Shawn Carter, is planning a luxury hotel in Manhattan. The J-Hotel will be the flagship for a planned chain of hotels.
The business ventures embarked upon by hip-hop artists should be lifted up more often. The public has to admit, many of the rappers did an excellent job of learning the music business including grasping ways to develop additional revenue streams. They took the time to understand the game and, rather than remaining a victim of the system, they re-defined the game. Perhaps it took criminal-minded individuals to win at a ruthless game. Hip-hop entrepreneurs are making moves but that's not likely to make the evening news. The media is fixated on the negative aspects of the culture.
Hip-Hop Artist Jay-Z Plans Luxury Manhattan Hotel
By: Scott Baltic, Contributing Correspondent, Commercial Property News
Rapper Jay-Z is busting a real estate move. Representatives of New York City native Shawn Carter, better known as rapper and entrepreneur Jay-Z, have purchased a site on Manhattan’s Lower West Side for redevelopment as the five-star J Hotel, the first in a planned series of such properties.
Plans call for a 150,000-square-foot structure, to be the flagship for his new hospitality brand, which he intends to roll out in select cities following this New York debut. J Hotel, in the heart of the gallery district between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues at 510 West 22nd Street, also known as 511 West 21st Street, will be a prominent new addition to the burgeoning High Line neighborhood. Eastern Consolidated director David Johnson, with executive directors, Ronald Solarz and Eric Anton exclusively represented the seller of the prime block-through site, a long-term owner, and Solarz and Anton also procured the buyers. Read the full story at Commercial Property News
I apologize for posting Obama stories back-to-back, but for all of the objectors that don't believe America will elect a Black man, here's what the other people think. If White people think Obama is a viable candidate, I wonder why so many Black people cannot accept a Black man on the ticket for President. Is that racism?
More Blacks Lean Toward Obama
Shift in Allegiance From Clinton Could Tighten Primaries in South
By JONATHAN KAUFMAN and VALERIE BAUERLEIN December 14, 2007; Page A5
Barack Obama's rising poll numbers among white voters in Iowa and New Hampshire are having an unexpected ripple effect: Some black voters are switching their allegiance from Hillary Clinton and lining up behind him too. That could mean a further tightening of the Democratic presidential race, especially in southern states where blacks make up as many as half of Democratic primary voters.
Barack Obama's rising poll numbers among white voters in Iowa and New Hampshire are having an unexpected ripple effect: Some black voters are switching their allegiance from Hillary Clinton and lining up behind him too. That could mean a further tightening of the Democratic presidential race, especially in southern states where blacks make up as many as half of Democratic primary voters.
...The black vote is likely to be crucial in the cascade of primaries that follow Iowa and New Hampshire next year. Blacks make up almost half of Democratic primary voters in South Carolina and Georgia, one third in Virginia and a quarter in Tennessee. They also make up a fifth of primary voters in New York and 15% in Delaware and Ohio.Read the full story here
Here's a hard-hitting commentary by Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune. Citing the fact that many of us today are slaves to the past and don't know it, Page quotes Harriet Tubman, ""I freed thousands of slaves," Harriet Tubman, the great conductor on the Underground Railroad. I could have freed thousands more, if they had known they were slaves."
Don't let slave mentality hold back Obama
By Clarence Page
Chicago Tribune
Andrew Young, a civil rights veteran and former U.N. ambassador, should stay away from microphones.
In videotaped comments that have taken the Internet by storm, he says this: "I want Barack Obama to be president . . . in 2016!"
Obama, the Illinois senator and Democratic presidential hopeful, is too young and too lacking in a support network to be pursuing the White House this time around, says Young.
In the video interview posted on NewsMakersLive.com based in Atlanta, where he used to be mayor, Young praises Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Young says that her husband, Bill, the former president, is "every bit as black as Barack."
As the audience whoops and laughs, he quips, "He's probably gone with more black women than Barack."
Young quickly adds, "I'm clowning." I'm sure he was. In case you couldn't guess, Young supports Clinton. He's even hosted a fund-raiser for her. But with supporters such as Young bringing up her least favorite part of her husband's presidency, Clinton doesn't need critics.
And, please, Mr. Ambassador. The line about Bill Clinton's being our first black president is wearing a little thin, especially when his wife is running against someone whose African side is more visibly apparent.
........
Such fear is a natural byproduct of our historical memory as an oppressed people whose hopes too often have been dashed.
I'm old enough to have heard the same pessimism expressed by my Roman Catholic friends about John F. Kennedy's chances in 1960. I heard similar pessimism expressed by some of my Jewish friends when Sen. Joe Lieberman ran in 2000. If you expect the worst, many figure, you won't be disappointed.
Read the full story here
Although most of the Black Republicans I have spoken with in the past couple of months plan to jump ship and vote for Obama, here's a bit of info for those readers still considering Mitt Romney. The article is from the Washington Informer.
Beyond the Rhetoric, Is Mitt Romney a Racist? by Harry C. Alford
Is Mitt Romney a Racist? That is a very important question to raise about someone who is seeking to become the President of the United States. With Romney there is always something new.
First of all, Mitt Romney has been raised a devout Mormon. He's a leader in the group. The founder, Joseph Smith, was actually an abolitionist who vehemently fought against the ills of slavery and welcomed Blacks into his new religion replete with its own bible, The Book of Mormon, written by members of this group. But Smith's successor was Brigham Young, who indeed was a racist, and who introduced the doctrine that Blacks were descendents of Cain, the bad son of Adam and Eve. Read the full story at the Washington, Informer
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